Starting October 15 and once a day until we’re done, I’ll be posting a series of blog entries taken from a paper I wrote with Kit O’Connell and the help of Steven Brust, Ken Brown, Deborah Ibarra, and many others. At 4th Street Fantasy Convention this year, everyone was curious about the possibilities for making money as more venues move toward the internet. We’re in a transitional time where many different ideas are being tried, scattered all across the ‘net, but in many cases it’s too new a trend to gauge long-term patterns and successes.
As Kit and I researched our paper and presentation on 21st century storytelling, we found that we wanted to answer the business models questions for ourselves as well as our friends. I also jumped at the chance to help a few of my more business-phobic acquaintances, excellent artists all, to have a more comfortable and solid understanding of business approaches as healthfully applied to art. Contrary to wide-spread and popular belief, the two do not have to be mutually exclusive, and knowing some basics about business process will not take away your artistic powers.
All of the blog entries in this series (as well as the ‘net and text versions) will be released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. We want you to learn from and apply the information in these posts so that you can earn income with your own creative works. We also approve of the various Creative Commons licenses and hope to encourage others to explore these options for distribution.
We’re really excited about this and our other related projects; it’s been very challenging and educational and best of all, tons of ongoing fun. We just had to share it with the rest of you! So stay tuned to this channel for the daily business models blog posts; we’ll have a web version updated with the latest entries here, and after it’s all done we’ll have an edited (and likely updated) text file that will be downloadable. We also welcome questions and comments throughout the series of posts. It’s nearly a sure thing that we’ve missed something in our research, and we can edit the final text file any time in the series. We’re hoping to have as comprehensive a list as possible, and we’d appreciate your help!
Tell your friends, and watch this space. See you tomorrow!
-Reesa
13 responses so far ↓
1 Yes, It Is All My Fault! » Let’s talk about the business of art… > Reesa Brown's homepage // Oct 14, 2008 at 9:22 pm
[...] Check out one piece of what I’ve been working on over the next several days at http://www.dreamcafe.com/words. I’ll be posting a series of entries (one a day) attempting to make dealing with the business end of the spectrum a little less scary for artistic types, as well as encouraging people to explore new ways of earning income. Read! question! comment! create! find your own answer to Step 2: ???? The first post about it can be found here. [...]
2 Peter Hentges // Oct 15, 2008 at 1:00 am
Just came across this interesting essay today: http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php
It proposes that an artist can make a decent living if he or she can attract 1,000 True Fans, that is, fans willing to give one day’s wages to the artist each year in return for that artist’s output.
It seemed relevant to what you’re writing about here, so I thought I’d pass it on.
3 kit // Oct 15, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I’m really excited about sharing our research with the world.
4 B Timothy Keith // Oct 15, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Being in the publishing world myself (not, alas, fiction), monetizing the digitizing of what currently is book publishing has been a hot topic among the more forward thinking of our peers. I pointed out to them a couple of weeks ago that it will those of you in the “genre” fiction world who have the most likelihood to succeed. With a strong “fan” base that has a built -in predisposition towards technology rather than an audience being hampered by the limiting self-definition of “reader” and “bibliophile”, I am truly encouraged that the movement towards successful “electronic publishing” model lies with the more open minded readers found in the genre world.
Sorry about all the “quotes”, but my peers often tend to be overeducated and old school and fail to recognize that the traditional model of publisher as gatekeeper IS going to change and that we need to let go of old definitions.
I also recognize that using the word monetize might be slightly out of place here, but in the end it really is the issue: can authors give it away and still eat or are they going to need to continue to depend on the interface of publisher to pay the bills…
I look forward to reading the paper and spreading the word…
5 21st Century Business Models for Artists 2 - “the 5 W’s” — Words Words Words — The Dream Cafe Weblog // Oct 17, 2008 at 3:56 am
[...] Part 0: Series Announcement [...]
6 Elizabeth Barrette // Oct 17, 2008 at 3:18 pm
I’ve been promoting cyberfunded creativity, which links writers/artists/musicians/etc. directly to their fans online, often with a high amount of audience interaction. Different people use different approaches — mine is holding a monthly Poetry Fishbowl where people give me prompts and I write poems based on those. There’s also a community on LiveJournal: cyberfund_creat
7 kit // Oct 17, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Thanks for linking to our series, Elizabeth. It sounds like a lot of our thinking is probably in line with yours; please give us your feedback as the series progresses.
8 21st Century Business Models for Artists (3) — DMAIC — Words Words Words — The Dream Cafe Weblog // Oct 18, 2008 at 11:48 pm
[...] Announcing: “21st Century Business Models for Artists” blog series (7) [...]
9 The Sando » Final Assignments due in and Steven Brust // Oct 19, 2008 at 5:22 pm
[...] others, Steven Brust, (the guy who writes the Dragerea Novels,) are three pages into their “21st Century Business Models for Artists” blog series” which is shaping up to be a interesting read. It’s also a Creative [...]
10 21st Century Business Models for Artists (4) - 4 Simple Steps — Words Words Words — The Dream Cafe Weblog // Oct 19, 2008 at 10:26 pm
[...] Part 0: Series Announcement [...]
11 21st Century Business Models for Artists (5) — Words Words Words — The Dream Cafe Weblog // Oct 21, 2008 at 1:56 am
[...] Part 0: Series Announcement [...]
12 Final Assignments due in and Steven Brust | The Sando // Oct 28, 2008 at 6:59 pm
[...] Brust, writes, (the guy who writes the Dragerea Novels,) are three pages into their “21st Century Business Models for Artists” blog series” which is shaping up to be a interesting read. It’s also a Creative [...]
13 The Sando » Final Assignments due in and Steven Brust // Nov 23, 2008 at 10:56 pm
[...] Brust, writes, (the guy who writes the Dragerea Novels,) are three pages into their “21st Century Business Models for Artists” blog series” which is shaping up to be a interesting read. It’s also a Creative [...]
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